Oh Dear... at DVinfo.net

Jon Shohet · December 2nd, 2008, 12:07 PM

Hi everybody...

I'm have to put together a DVD of a 40 minute show. Nothing complicated, just mix together two cameras, and then some color corrections and titles.

I think I made a big mistake, though, by shooting the show with my V1, in 1080i 25P mode, and a rented PD170, in 720x576 widescreen. seemed like a good idea at the time, don't know why...
Now, when I try to mix them on a PAL widescreen timeline, it looks like a big mess. I'm working for the first time on PP CS4, and it still does a horrible job of downscaling hdv to sd.
Performance is dead slow, and it looks god ugly.

Should I use MPEGStremclip to downscale and work only with PAL widescreen footage?
(Next time I'm renting a second hdv camera for certain...)

Also, am I missing something, or is dynamic link still just nothing more then a glorified "copy/paste" between PP and AE?
Obviously, it would be ideal for me to do the mixing by using multicamera editing. but when I try to send the edit to AE for color correction, it can't understand multicamera and just gives me the top track in the original PP sequence. What's the bloody point of dynamic link if AE and PP can barely understand one another??? for transfering simple cuts I could manage with copy and paste just fine. Tight integration my tuchess...

(sorry for losing it, but Adobe is really getting on my nerves with this one.... and on top of that, I can't believe you can't copy and paste clips in PP between different tracks anymore... what is going on????)

sincerely going crazy,
Jon.

Ervin Farkas · December 2nd, 2008, 12:47 PM

Short of a better editor, downscaling is probably your best bet. I would suggest extracting the mpeg from the hdv footage with Streamclip and then resizing with VirtualDub, which does a much better job. Although you might be just fine with Streamclip since you have already thrown away some of the video info setting the PD170 to wide...

Jon Shohet · December 2nd, 2008, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ervin Farkas

Short of a better editor

?

By "Editor" do you mean a better editing software, or are you being condescending?
Hope I'm misreading, it just felt a bit like a cheap shot.

Thanks.

Jon Shohet · December 3rd, 2008, 01:37 AM

Does anyone know if there is a way\workaround to get AE to work with a multicamera sequence?

Jiri Fiala · December 3rd, 2008, 03:53 AM

By "editor", editors mean editing software. To the other point: I wouldn't suggest using dynamic link with multicam... if it ever works, it will be dog slow. You will be better off just rendering a QT and importing into AE.

Johnnie Behiri · December 3rd, 2008, 05:15 PM

Hi Jon, ma nish ma.

If you have a previous version of Premiere (CS2/3) download a trail version of Cineform Prospect HD (CineForm Home Page).
Then, use there method to scale down your footage to PAL (Support Center) go to-Timeline export and media creation-Premiere Pro-How do I create a DVD....).
Choose the relevant PAL parameters.

Now you have a nice scaled down footage that can be (hopefully) mixed with your DV one.

Hope that helps.
Le it.
Johnnie

Jon Shohet · December 5th, 2008, 03:02 PM

Thanks for the replies. Toda Raba ;)

Unfortunately Cineform is a bit over my budget right now, so I'd rather not bother with the trial version...

I'm really disappointed with dynamic link. This is already the third generation of it, and still no real improvement in term of true PP-AE integration as far as I can see. The new option to replace PP clips as AE composition, although handy, is nothing more than an automated shortcut to import PP footage/Sequence into AE and link it back to PP. This is something that we could have done manually in previous versions. I'll ask it again - what is the point of DL, if you can't use it to edit in PP, and then send the edit to AE for CC and Compositing? I can understand that getting AE and PP to correctly share every single effect and transition would probably take an insane amount of code rewrite and that will not happen soon if ever. But come on - is it so much to expect AE to understand cross dissolves and multi-cam sequences from PP? These are fundamental editing tasks IMHO...
I'm going to write this to Adobe as well, I'm interested to see if they respond...

Any way, last question regarding the resizing :

As Ervin predicted, (BTW, sorry if I was too touchy and came off rude before) resizing quality in MPEGStreamclip was not amazing. I guess the best way would be probably to indeed use AVISynth/Vdub. I've never really used AVISynth before. Although I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out, I'd rather go a simpler route if possible.

What do you guys think of using AE for the HDV->PAL conversion?
I've done it before, it is very convenient, and it seems to me the result is far better than with PP. Would I be sacrificing a lot of quality using AE to resize/re-encode compared with using AVISynt/Vdub?

Thanks.

Ervin Farkas · December 8th, 2008, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon Shohet

As Ervin predicted, (BTW, sorry if I was too touchy and came off rude before) resizing quality in MPEGStreamclip was not amazing.

No problem Jon.

I have done extensive testing using all the soft you mention. And no, it was not intended to be a cheap shot, it is simply not my type to be condescendent - PPro is the worst for resizing. There are some workarounds some people tested but never worked for me (like editing in an HDV project and then importing the project in a new SD project). AE is marginally good for changing frame rate (I tested it an NTSC to PAL conversion) but leaving the frame size unchanged, as AE has a poor resizing algorithm. VDub is poor at changing frame rate.

Since you don't need frame rate change, your best bet is VirtualDub, and you don't need AviSynth to go with it if you can deal with a lossless codec like HUFFYUV (VDub does not work with DirectShow codecs).

My friendly suggestion is to get Procoder in case you are dealing with lots of different formats; for a price that won't break the bank, you will have the best tool for converting to and from pretty much all of the video formats in use today. And it works as a PPro plugin too (use it as MPEG2 encoder for example, results far superior to PPro/Encore).

Good luck,

December 2nd, 2008, 12:07 PM	#1
Jon Shohet Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London, UK Posts: 277	Oh Dear... Hi everybody... I'm have to put together a DVD of a 40 minute show. Nothing complicated, just mix together two cameras, and then some color corrections and titles. I think I made a big mistake, though, by shooting the show with my V1, in 1080i 25P mode, and a rented PD170, in 720x576 widescreen. seemed like a good idea at the time, don't know why... Now, when I try to mix them on a PAL widescreen timeline, it looks like a big mess. I'm working for the first time on PP CS4, and it still does a horrible job of downscaling hdv to sd. Performance is dead slow, and it looks god ugly. Should I use MPEGStremclip to downscale and work only with PAL widescreen footage? (Next time I'm renting a second hdv camera for certain...) Also, am I missing something, or is dynamic link still just nothing more then a glorified "copy/paste" between PP and AE? Obviously, it would be ideal for me to do the mixing by using multicamera editing. but when I try to send the edit to AE for color correction, it can't understand multicamera and just gives me the top track in the original PP sequence. What's the bloody point of dynamic link if AE and PP can barely understand one another??? for transfering simple cuts I could manage with copy and paste just fine. Tight integration my tuchess... (sorry for losing it, but Adobe is really getting on my nerves with this one.... and on top of that, I can't believe you can't copy and paste clips in PP between different tracks anymore... what is going on????) sincerely going crazy, Jon.

December 2nd, 2008, 12:47 PM	#2
Ervin Farkas Inner Circle Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Atlanta/USA Posts: 2,515	Short of a better editor, downscaling is probably your best bet. I would suggest extracting the mpeg from the hdv footage with Streamclip and then resizing with VirtualDub, which does a much better job. Although you might be just fine with Streamclip since you have already thrown away some of the video info setting the PD170 to wide... __________________ Ervin Farkas www.AtlantaLegalVideo.com

December 3rd, 2008, 01:37 AM	#4
Jon Shohet Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London, UK Posts: 277	Does anyone know if there is a way\workaround to get AE to work with a multicamera sequence?

December 3rd, 2008, 03:53 AM	#5
Jiri Fiala Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Brno Czech Republic Posts: 453	By "editor", editors mean editing software. To the other point: I wouldn't suggest using dynamic link with multicam... if it ever works, it will be dog slow. You will be better off just rendering a QT and importing into AE.

December 3rd, 2008, 05:15 PM	#6
Johnnie Behiri Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Vienna/Austria Posts: 187	Hi Jon, ma nish ma. If you have a previous version of Premiere (CS2/3) download a trail version of Cineform Prospect HD (CineForm Home Page). Then, use there method to scale down your footage to PAL (Support Center) go to-Timeline export and media creation-Premiere Pro-How do I create a DVD....). Choose the relevant PAL parameters. Now you have a nice scaled down footage that can be (hopefully) mixed with your DV one. Hope that helps. Le it. Johnnie

December 5th, 2008, 03:02 PM	#7
Jon Shohet Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London, UK Posts: 277	Thanks for the replies. Toda Raba ;) Unfortunately Cineform is a bit over my budget right now, so I'd rather not bother with the trial version... I'm really disappointed with dynamic link. This is already the third generation of it, and still no real improvement in term of true PP-AE integration as far as I can see. The new option to replace PP clips as AE composition, although handy, is nothing more than an automated shortcut to import PP footage/Sequence into AE and link it back to PP. This is something that we could have done manually in previous versions. I'll ask it again - what is the point of DL, if you can't use it to edit in PP, and then send the edit to AE for CC and Compositing? I can understand that getting AE and PP to correctly share every single effect and transition would probably take an insane amount of code rewrite and that will not happen soon if ever. But come on - is it so much to expect AE to understand cross dissolves and multi-cam sequences from PP? These are fundamental editing tasks IMHO... I'm going to write this to Adobe as well, I'm interested to see if they respond... Any way, last question regarding the resizing : As Ervin predicted, (BTW, sorry if I was too touchy and came off rude before) resizing quality in MPEGStreamclip was not amazing. I guess the best way would be probably to indeed use AVISynth/Vdub. I've never really used AVISynth before. Although I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out, I'd rather go a simpler route if possible. What do you guys think of using AE for the HDV->PAL conversion? I've done it before, it is very convenient, and it seems to me the result is far better than with PP. Would I be sacrificing a lot of quality using AE to resize/re-encode compared with using AVISynt/Vdub? Thanks.